Extra time granted for some on ACA

The Obama administration will extend Obamacare enrollment past Monday’s deadline for those people who have had difficulty signing up, an official said Tuesday night.

The deadline for individuals to start the sign-up process remains March 31, but they will get extra time and assistance to complete it if they’ve encountered problems. It was not immediately clear how many people this could affect, or how much extra time they would get. Details are expected to be announced Wednesday.

Story Continued Below

“Open enrollment ends March 31. We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment — either online or over the phone,” said Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s the latest in a series of changes or delays to the complex four-year-old law, although officials portrayed this one as being a limited change for specific groups and stressed that people who want or need coverage should start the enrollment process immediately. People who do ask for additional time won’t have to document when their difficulties began. The government will let them “self-attest,” according to an administration official.

Many changes to the Affordable Care Act have come amid crises for President Barack Obama’s signature law, such as when the federal enrollment website was seizing up or spewing out error messages or when states were balking at setting up insurance exchanges under the law.

The Washington Post reported the extension Tuesday night.

This one, however, comes while the White House touts increasing waves of enrollment — which as of mid-March had hit 5.2 million, plus several million more in Medicaid, officials said.

“The initial open enrollment period has been one of the most sweeping periods of accomplishment of any law or program in memory,” a White House official said this week. Nearing or surpassing 6 million by Monday now seems to be within reach.

Insurers were guarded Tuesday, saying they had to see specific details of the latest extension. Several health plan officials had told POLITICO they were expecting some kind of “special enrollment” period, along the lines of what the administration did for people crashing up against the late December deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1. Several states have been signaling a possible slide in their March 31 deadlines, too.

Insurers can accommodate some tweaks to the timetable but say they don’t want enrollment prolonged on a large scale for a long time. Health plans need to get a good sense of whom they are covering, and how many people they are covering, so they can submit premiums for next year. Most will do that in May or June, with some state variation.

Tim Jost, a health lawyer and consumer advocate who supports the legislation, likened the extra flexibility to keeping the polls open for voters who had gotten in line on time. “Frankly, I don’t think that should be a big concern to insurers,” he said. But if it’s too “loosey goosey” and consumers just have to check a box saying they tried to apply, the modified process could be more challenging.

Even in states where enrollment has been working well, some people do encounter inexplicable glitches. Caitlin Reed, of Kenmore, Wash., has had all sorts of health department, state legislature and state exchange officials trying — and so far failing— to get her application unstuck from the generally well-functioning exchange there.

“We can get to my application, we can see my application — and then it just says ‘malfunction’ and no one knows how to fix it,” said Reed, who has been trying to get coverage for her family of five since December. She’s been increasingly worried about the encroaching deadline.

Families USA’s Ron Pollack said the extra time for people who need help was not surprising but “very welcome.

“A good number of people who through no fault of their own weren’t able to finish the enrollment process will be able to do it,” Pollack said late Tuesday. “I was in favor of a general extension irrespective of whether people have tried to get enrolled previously. … Even if some people get enrolled who really hadn’t made much of an effort, there’s no harm in getting those folks enrolled, it’s a good thing.”

Despite this month’s surge in sign-ups, pushed in part by relentless White House outreach from the president on down, insurers estimate that 15 to 20 percent of the people who have applied for coverage have not yet paid their premiums — the final, critical step.

HHS said Tuesday that more than 1.1 million people visited HealthCare.gov on Monday to check out their options — the second-biggest traffic day ever. Traffic has been robust in recent days, officials said.

The administration has been making particular attempts to reach Latinos, who have a very high uninsurance rate, and young people, a demographic that insurers want to draw in.

Some of the big tax preparation companies have been combining Obamacare advice with tax returns, so extending enrollment until around April 15 makes sense for them.

Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Services said, “This extension [is] a win for uninsured Americans who are now signing up as they file their taxes.” That extra available cash with a tax refund, he said, is a good starting point for buying health coverage.